07.05.08
Open World Extravaganza
I’ll be the first to admit it: I love open world games. They cater to my powerful explorer gene. They facilitate the escapism that I so dearly need, they give me the freedom to get lost in a huge fictional world based on rules that are complex enough to entertain me for hours, yet simple enough to eventually understand and master. And thankfully they are extremely popular these days.
I’ve recently spent upwards of 70 hours playing GTA4. I’ve just been sucked back into World of Warcraft. Not long ago, I was riding around in Oblivion’s Cyrodiil, creeping frightened and unnerved through STALKER’s Chernobyl, jumping from sun to sun in Dark Star One’s damn near infinite universe, and sailing the Carribbean seas in Pirates! And before that, I spent hours upon hours dodging Boiling Point’s bugs for the chance to drive through the massive jungles of their fictional South American banana republic.
In short, I really love open world games. I love them most when they are shooters or RPG’s, when there is a story to experience. And the rest of 2008 and 2009 will be a good time for me. A really good time indeed. Here’s a quick list of the games I anticipate the most:
Far Cry 2
One of the ideas I was most fond about for OTP’s next game after TNM was an open-world top-down helicopter action game set in Africa. Africa is an excellent and incomprehensibly underused setting for a game. It’s so huge and spans so many climates that it has cities, deserts, jungles, and savannah, and yet most non-Africans usually don’t distinguish much between the many parts of Africa. We hear “Africa”, and we think of all these environments. That’s a perfect opportunity to put together a fictional African setting that embodies all of this fantastic variation.
And that’s exactly what Far Cry 2 will do, as it lets us loose in a 50 km² portion of Africa with several playable characters, many different weapons and vehicles, and objectives that are built around the idea of goals rather than methods - you need to do something, but you will choose your own approach. Frankly, I can’t wait. In fact I’m probably going to have to upgrade my video card and my CPU for this game.
Mercenaries 2
I must admit I didn’t have very high thoughts of this game. It sounded like a pretty braindead ’splodefest until I saw this video at Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Now I’m psyched. The story will probably be complete pants, but the gameplay looks ace. Though I gotta say… I’m not sure that’s quite my definition of “covert” 
White Gold
So… Boiling Point was crap. No, I mean… it had potential, don’t get me wrong. But it was crap. It was a collection of great ideas held together by wishful thinking. Its world was repetitive (made out of copy/pasted tiles), its missions varied immensely from the exciting to the boring, and pretty much every piece of its code was broken. I saw the potential at once, and so I kept playing, but even after the bigass 2.0 patch, the game didn’t play quite the way it should. White Gold is its sequel, and I’m holding my breath for its release.
Apparently BP was made by a team of 13 people (which is probably the definition of insane), and now they have 30 people working on the foundations of an existing game, so there’s a good chance they can finally do their own ideas justice. I certainly hope so, because if it works this time, it will be grand. They’re even throwing in a proper RPG system! Grand.
Red Faction: Guerilla
Red Faction was a solid shooter, Red Faction 2 was apparently rather bland, but Red Faction: Guerilla will be an open-world game that pitches you as a resistance fighter trying to liberate Mars from the chokehold of the Earth forces that were your allies in the original game. Their main attraction (fully destructible terrain) isn’t really what appeals to me the most, since Mercenaries 2 and Far Cry 2 boast the same feature, and honestly… I’m kinda over it. From what little I’ve seen of it so far, though, it just looks fantastically good.
My big problem with the shooter genre used to be that FPS games were always so linear - always set in cramped corridors or expansive outdoor areas that somehow still managed to act like corridors, it was about time more designers took a hint from games like System Shock 2 and Deus Ex. It was about time we started seeing these awe-inspiring open worlds with freedom to complete the objectives your way. I approve.
Milton said,
July 6, 2008 at 00:31
WHAT?! Where is Fallout 3? ;P just kidding, nice list. I wasn’t even aware some of these games existed but after some googling and your summary I think I will give them a try. Far cry 2 appears to be a good game (from the 20 minutes video) but after playing far cry I have my reservations.
About open worlds… well as long as them keep them interesting because exploring just to.. well.. explore.. I prefer to do that out of the digital world and by keeping them interesting I mean interesting quests, unique places (not just the same dungeon over and over again), and one thing that you mentioned on another post, rewarding exploration.(items… info… skill point… etc).
Jonas said,
July 6, 2008 at 00:46
I ordered the list roughly according to when they’re due for release, though I think White Gold may come out before any of the others - it’s hard to tell. Glad you appreciate my recommendations, I was actually thinking about adding Fallout 3 in there, but the current list is all shooters (though White Gold is RPG as well as shooter, I don’t think it’s nearly as much RPG as Fallout 3 will be). I dunno, it just seemed to stand out too much. And also I felt my list was long enough already
As for exploration in general, of course it’s only interesting if there’s something unique to find. But most open world games can at the very least offer unique new areas. It’s very different from player to player how much encouragement is needed to explore, and what players find interesting - in GTA4, for example, Nick and I are both delighted when we discover an enterable building with a hidden weapon pickup, but Nick wasn’t very impressed when I took him to the half-sunken ships off the coast in Alderney. I was thrilled to find them just because they looked impressive. Maybe that’s the designer in me.
I acknowledge that most players require actual gameplay rewards for exploration, and I definitely love getting items or skill points when I find an area off the beaten path, but I don’t strictly need it.
EER said,
July 6, 2008 at 08:27
Me & Exploration, it really depends on the game. I really liked exploring in GTA:SA, because there were so many different areas. Desert, oil wells, a mountain (with downhill challenge(!) and the possibility to throw yourself off it (!), woods, rivers, even a triathlon challenge
So much to do, so much to explore.
Then there’s Oblivion, there are basically three types of dungeons. Once you’ve done them, you’ve done them all, so not much incentive to not use fast travel. The only interesting part are the guild quests and the deadra quests. Most user mods are ‘kill x creatures and get an uber item’, so that’s not very interesting. Stirk is interesting though
http://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/
In half-life 2, I know you are somehow finding opportunities to explore while you’re being funneled down the ending, but I really didn’t feel incensed to do so.
In Deus Ex however, I do explore a lot, probably because there is so much to find, strange conversations to overhear. I’m working on my fourth playthrough right now, and this is the first time I found out that Shannon is the one that is stealing stuff from the armory
Also, this triggered a conversation with gen. carter, who said Simons would already have a plan in case. I was disappointed that when I talked to shannon after that (to warn her), I could not warn her
In IW, on my last playthrough (last month or so) I explored every nook of the levels (I think) but there was hardly anything to be found I didn’t find on an earlier playthrough
So it really depends on the game, and it also depends a lot on the level design.
Milton said,
July 6, 2008 at 10:32
Oblivion manage to provide me with some fun for about 33h but mostly because of the much improved combat mechanics, fast travel system, random interesting quest (the main one was at times very predictable and thus boring I didn’t felt compel to finish it).
Deus ex… so many things to say… about exploration, one of the primary reasons I explorer in Dx is to find alternate routes to my objectives, the other is to find hidden plot elements or interesting things about the world. (Dx is filled with this things and I think I haven’t fund them all)
Speaking of Dx, I think I prefer exploration on indoor games not sure why but maybe because I don’t have to travel much to explore.
(well Dx isn’t a open world but still, it felt more like a world than many open worlds)
I think I have realised why exploration in Deus ex is so great, because it feels unique and many times it contributes to the understanding of the world/plot and because you are rewarded with easier ways to complete your objectives.
I should now tight all this more or less separated paragraphs and conclude on the this I like about close worlds/open worlds but well… I’m tired of typing in English… and to be honest I’m afraid to become incoherent because sometimes I don’t know if I’m saying what I really want if it is being transmitted in the way I desire. (I suck at my “own” language…)
Jonas said,
July 6, 2008 at 14:14
Yeah I think it’s far easier to create interesting exploration in city environments or indoor areas than outdoors because line of sight plays an important role in exploration: In a meadow or on a mountainside, you’ll often have to travel really far to reach an area you couldn’t see from where you started out. In a city or in, say, an evil lab, it’s usually simply a case of moving around a wall or through a door or, uh, a man-sized vent shaft
It’s a question of “how many things are in your way”, pretty much. In a natural area, there aren’t many obstructions per square meter, so exploration becomes a lot less interesting. And of course, as I’ve described before, a large part of the lure of exploration in the Deus Ex and Thief games is the attraction of going where you’re not supposed to go - such as into other people’s locked apartments
I think I would prioritize exploration rewards like this:
3) Scenery - a purdy waterfall, a crumbled ruin, a half-sunken ship.
2) Story - New dialogue, a revealing email from a major character, newspaper clippings about an important event in the fictional world’s history.
1) Gameplay - weapons, items, skill/experience points, or a superior route to your objectives.
This is ordered according to what I appreciate the most. Any of that is a reward to me, but I prefer story rewards over scenery and gameplay rewards over either. Of course when you combine all three, such as in Jock’s apartment in Deus Ex where you get to visit a really nice-looking Hong Kong apartment with one heck of a view, learn something about Jock by going through his stuff and reading his mails, and even get some exploration skillpoints and some sniper ammo for your effort IIRC, that is magic.
Placebo said,
July 6, 2008 at 16:00
My first ecounter the open world games wasn’t so great.
First there was Morrowind. I was young, unexpirienced gamer, didn’t know what I like. The hugeness of that world scared me, it was difficult for me to traverse miles in between places, figuring things on your own, creatures on the roads, skeletons in the caves….managing inventory. I was to lazy to borred to keep on. I only enjoyed the begining, the very first mission got me imersed into the world: sitting on top of a tower, lighthouse, paying attention where the hidden lot is. After it, the magic weared off.
Deus Ex came around that time. I enjoyed it. I love it. Maybe it cause of this city-enviroment thing you guys mention.ž
Stalker. Didn’t fullfil my expectations. I didn’t like traversing, and traversing the distances, randomly repeated side missions. All would be okay till I ran out of ammo, or was too encumbered. You gotta have them all.
Boiling Point. I really wanted to enjoy the game despite bugs. And then Jonas droped by, and then I really deleted the game making free space cause I was plaing on formating a partition which in the end I didn’t need to do after all, and then i read http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=59379 which was really synced with how I felt about the game and my approaching it but I was to late…….it’s eithe another download or wait for White Gold
Oblivion? With all the tits and ass, in the end, meh….
Jonas said,
July 6, 2008 at 16:14
With all the WHAT!?
STALKER was alright, but it was too hard for me, so I had to play with invincibility, and I got stuck on the third underground area because I was too freaked out to go on. I won’t be getting Clear Sky - horror is just not my thing.
As for Morrowind, I actually had exactly the same problem as you: It was too early for me - I didn’t understand how to enjoy the game.
Placebo said,
July 6, 2008 at 20:09
I tried to make it interested, puting the naked skins. I held me a few day =P